Under The Sea Picture

As always, trying to improve my art through more practice with lighting, color and lineweight, etc. This was a fun little doodle I did earlier today but I loved her so much I just went straight to coloring her when I got home.

without further ado meet Crystal Clearwater, the Pisceian (AKA mermaid but with legs too). Like all pisceians she dwellls with all of her fishy friends in the underwater city of Creedinse. The pisceians lost their homeland long ago in a great disaster when it sunk into the Abyss, and much knowledge from their golden age was lost, so pisceian culture is marked by half functioning wonderous technology juxtaposed with less advanced "modern" technology. Crystal is what is known as a "past-keeper" a type of wandering ranger of sorts that ventures out into the deep ruins of the lost Holy City to protect it from looters and malcontents as well as to recover lost knowledge about their forgotten past, and most importantly to recover any still functioning power sources from the ruins as they have lost the knowledge to create generators for their own technology.

As a pisceian her equipment is designed for use underwater. Armor is heavy and can significantly inhibit swimming and speed, so all fish-people tend to favor light, tight fitting armor usually made from leather, cured seaweed, or in Crystal's case, scales from a large predatory fish. Her favored weapon is a broad bladed short spear tethered to a weighted kunai (technically a sharpened anchor). The spear is named 'Raem' after the piscean mythological beast that feeds off of memories. She recovered Raem during one of her expeditions to the Holy City, so it is a marvelous weapon significantly better than pisceian's decayed modern technology can produce. It is made from a special coral that makes it very light for its size allowing her to use it one handed, as well as allowing it to naturally repair any nicks, cracks or dents it might experience due to combat.

As a past-keeper she is a capable survivalist and very pragmatic in combat, willing to use the terrain and surroundings to her advantage. Her combat style utilizes the forceful stabs and swings from the spearhead combined with tricky defensive techniques that revolve around catching an opponents weapons in the hook of the anchor, the rope, or the notches in Raem's head. Figure 1 shows one of the hooking techniques of the kunai anchor, and figure 2 A/B shows a basic thrust and throwing technique, which can be retracted with the tether.

All pisceians are suspicious of outsiders, as it was interactions with non-pisceian races that lead to the complications that doomed the Holy City long ago, although the details of the fall have long passed into myth. As a past-keeper Crystal is especially suspicious of outsiders, but treats them with guarded courtesy so long as they do not show any signs of danger or intent to desecrate the holy City.